Why are we not all using enterprise collaboration platforms?

 How many times this week have you sent out an email to more than one person and the replies come back thick and fast, and before you know it you have many replies all in different emails and getting this back into one string is near on impossible. Then add attachments to the mix and this potentially multiplies the problem.

Am I saying stop using email now? Not yet I’m not, but there is obviously a problem that needs solving. There are solutions out there that solve this exact issue, but why are we not all using them? (I am not saying this is the only problem these solutions solve too)

I have spoken to many clients that say in 5 years no one will be using email in their firm. I disagree; I just don’t think that will happen. What I think will happen is, it will become like faxing is now – very limited. There is always someone that has to send/receive a fax, but faxing has dropped off a cliff in the last 5 or so years (just ask the law firms that used to charge for a lot of faxing). So for me it will be ‘less email’ rather than ‘email-less’.

The younger generations of today are already moving away from email and using social media and messaging services instead. I very rarely receive an email from my younger cousins, but you can’t keep them off WhatsApp or Facebook.

One of the main problems is email is so widely used today and by so many people that stopping using it could affect your business. I’ve read about the firms that ban internal email and only use email for external. I think this is a good idea, but has serious flaws. Asking staff to switch from email (from a client that you would normally forward on for comment) to say, an enterprise collaboration platform, is putting up a barrier that some staff will struggle with.

Enterprise collaboration platforms generally refer to the system that combines tools and processes to ensure employees can connect and collaborate with the people, information and the resources they
require at any given time.

I have used firm owned enterprise collaboration platforms with clients for managing projects and so many times I hear…’can you not just email it to me’ from their own staff. There is nothing wrong essentially with the platforms they are using, staff just don’t buy into it.

And there is another problem. I heard these words the other day ‘there are loads of collaboration platforms used today and so many passwords to remember, it’s just not as easy as email’. I’m sure most people would say email systems are simple and easy to use, however is that because we are used to using one platform every day that rarely changes. If you jump between Outlook 2010, 2013, Yahoo and Gmail every day for a week, the user experience is so different it’s enough to put you off using email.

My conclusion is, like with many projects and implementations, it’s very much about buy in and leadership. There is an answer and a better solution to the problem and maybe this will evolve with time as the younger generation grow into the business world, but it is not widely adopted enough yet, and are the leaders in businesses using them enough and in the right way and leading from the front? Enterprise collaboration platforms give you not only a way to improve the flow of information between employees and customers, but also a way to facilitate interaction with employees internally. I believe the successful businesses of tomorrow are already using enterprise collaboration platforms internally and externally.

So will I stop using email tomorrow? No, but we are using our own collaboration platform (Nikec Hub) and Salesforce Chatter to cut down on internal email…. Oh and using the old fashioned option of speaking to someone directly. Plus I got my dad using email last year, after countless times of trying, but he swears he’ll never get on social media so I’ll keep my Yahoo account live a bit longer.

Damian Jeal [    ]

Nikec Solutions [ www.nikecsolutions.com ]




Nikec Hub is a powerful extranet for all your firms collaboration, communication and document security needs.

Nikec Hub is an extranet that provides firms with a secure and efficient way of managing information, while enhancing communications and collaboration with colleague and clients. It integrates seamlessly with your document management system allowing users to create their own extranet in a few quick steps. It also integrates with many practice management systems enabling firms to provide up-to-date management information to their clients all from within a single, powerful portal.

Need more information or want to test drive Nikec Hub? Contact us as info@nikecsolutions.com

 

ALA 2015 Report – Less Paper, Paperless or Paper-Lite?

  Last week I went to the ALA Expo, to exhibit and find out what law firms are doing in their effort to be paperless.

ALA, The Association of Legal Administrators, is tagged as the undisputed leader for the business of law and law practice management. ALA provides law office advice and resources for all aspects of legal management with one aspect being their Annual Conference & Expo, which this year was in Nashville. For the delegates the expo is an excellent resource for information and education, as well as for networking with and learning from peers.

Having been in Nashville 9 months earlier for ILTA 2014, I knew what to expect from the city – music, music and music. If you haven’t been lucky enough to visit Nashville, you should add it to your list of must go to cities in the US. The ALA Expo was held in the Music City Center, which is a brand new facility with over 350,000 square feet of hall space and the largest Grand Ballroom in the state. Whilst many exhibitors attend both ILTA and ALA, ALA has a very different attendee list that gives vendors a chance to get involved in discussions from a different angle to those at ILTA.

Music Center - Nashville

At Nikec we are very much focused on the less-paper office and client engagement. From our digital binder (Nikec Binder) and extranet (Nikec Hub) solutions through to our outlook email printing reduction tool (ThreadPrint). We had a busy 3 days at our exhibition booth. Whilst the terminology - less paper, paperless or paper-lite – changed per delegate, the theme is the same. They all have a focus on reducing paper in their firms. However, many are at different stages and it’s not always the big well known firms that are leading the way.

Aside from the exhibition area, there were many seminars running for all to attend. The one that really caught my eye pre event, was one led by Deborah Novachick of Strategic Automation Consulting. I set off on my long walk from the exhibition area, in the far corner on level 3, to room 104 where 200 or so delegates were sat. The 1 hour 45 minutes seminar flew by, as Deborah delivered a very engaging talk titled – ‘The paperless office - 20 years in the making and counting’. It was very much focused on a case study of a San Francisco law firm and the role of the Administrator in this project.

There were some great takeaways from the talk and too many for this blog, but here are some key ones:

· It’s hard to change the culture in the law firm to be paperless, so engage the right people in the firm to help gain support with your paperless project. This case study was put on hold originally due to lack of budget and support.

· Think about the generation of staff. It’s not one size fits all, so focus on how you approach this.

· Build a mixed team, and to do that focus on their strengths. In this case study they reflected on the Amazon best seller of 2013 Strength Finders to help with this. And to quote “people who focus on strengths are 9 times more likely to be engaged in their jobs”. Also people involved in paperless projects feel good about saving the environment. They are often paperless type people at home, so get them onside.

· Lawyers and clients are the ones that create the most paper. So there is a need to engage with the client and your lawyers on how and why you are going paperless. Lawyers using tablets are often pushing for paperless, but sometimes they are not thinking where to store the data (e.g. consumer file sharing). There is an education needed here. Also if lawyers can retrieve and access the documents easily there will be a stronger buy in.

· Create a general policy to stop paper coming into the firm then refine to handle internal points such as reducing email printing. And STOP maintaining both hard copy and paper files.

· Start by scanning incoming mail as an early task in your paperless project. Make new matter intakes paperless. Make sure users have confidence in the DMS, not just to save and store documents, but to find them and use them regularly like you would the paper file.

· OCR your documents and get your naming convention right and sell it within the firm.

· Dual monitors were used by most in the room, but many lawyers still don’t. You need to help lawyers take what was on their desk space real estate onto their screens and dual screens will help this along with the right applications.

· Print without cover page and double sided - make sure you have the correct technology in place (at least 15% of the room still use cover pages).

· You can't manage what you can't measure – you need tools in place to measure your paper output over time to show you are reducing paper and in what areas, which will allow you to constantly improve.

The consensus from the room was printing and scanning is going up and copying is reducing, which is a good sign everyone is moving in the right direction.

My big take away from this event was everyone is trying, and some trying very hard, to move to the paperless office. However, they all still have issues which are not always the same. Users still remain the key to your success and it’s about finding the right technology to help, as it can’t be achieved on persistence alone.

Until next year, see you in Los Angeles for ALA 2016.


Damian Jeal
VP Global Sales @ Nikec Solutions

 

Damian Jeal [    ]

Nikec Solutions [ www.nikecsolutions.com ]

7 ways in which extranets will boost firm-wide productivity and efficiency

Project management and collaboration forms a large part of a law firm’s operations with lawyers having to constantly share, collaborate and communicate information with internal teams and clients.  Subsequently, project management and collaboration tools are fast becoming an important platform to drive competitiveness and efficiencies. In fact a recent survey shows that 43% of top 100 law firms are looking to use or adopt legal project management technologies in the next 5 years.* 

Whereas in the past client extranets were only for large firms with big budgets, primarily due to cost and site management, this no longer holds true.  Secure, encrypted, easy to use extranets can be set up by users in a few quick steps, offering teams a private and secure network for all their workflow requirements. 

7 ways in which extranets enhance productivity and efficiency

Collaborate

With law firms becoming global and with workers increasingly mobile, the need for collaboration is more important than ever to remain productive. Users require access to information immediately both inside and out of the office.  To accommodate their needs, workers frequently use tools such as emails, consumer file sharing solutions and centrally shared folders as a means to store, share and edit these.  However this means that documents are saved in disparate and insecure locations outside making these hard to find.  Then there is the issue of document versioning and determining which document contains the latest updates.

Extranets provide a central area for team members and clients to store, share, edit and view matter or project related documents and folders – a place where ideas can be exchanged and where documents can be stored, accessed and reviewed in an efficient and streamlined manner. Document updates can be tracked enhancing accountability and productivity.  Ultimately it allows teams to stay focused throughout the entirety of the project or matter.

Share

Large documents and case files need to be shared between teams and clients.  With email accounts having file size limits, lawyers often resort to using consumer based file sharing solutions which are not developed with document security in mind.  Searching for relevant information within emails is also time-consuming.

Extranets allow teams to store and share all the information for any given project or team – including all versions of relevant uploaded documents – is in one, single place.  It also allows the seamless and secure transfer of documents from their Document Management System, be it single documents, a set of documents in a folder or the whole matter which in turn makes the workflow processes smoother. 

Communicate

With documents and information constantly changing, teams and clients need to keep up to date with the latest updates. Emails and telephone conversations can be inefficient as team members are left out of the loop with certain messages which could lead to vital updates being missed.  There is also a certain amount of time lag involved - not good for clients who want access to their information fast. 

Extranets provides users with a strong forum to exchange information, resources, comments, announcements, ideas and group feedback with colleagues, clients, counsel and suppliers from within a centralised area.  It reduces miscommunications as messages are communicated to all members of the team, simultaneously.  At the same time, extranets allow teams to communicate up-to-date management information to clients about their matter, enhancing trust and improving the overall customer experience.

Knowledge

As lawyers work on a case or project, a great deal of knowledge can be amassed.  Often firms lack the means to capture this essential information which could be valuable for current or future use.
 

Extranets ensure that all essential knowledge about a matter or project is captured centrally for teams and clients to tap into and access at all times. This helps leverage a firm’s existing experience and expertise and even help set benchmarks to provide the highest levels of services to clients.

Integrate

Information contained in silos is no longer efficient.  Systems need to be integrated to provide a holistic view of pertinent information relating to a case of project or else firms risk losing information or may not have access to all the relevant information to make the best decisions.

Extranets provide the ability to integrate with various systems within a firm’s existing work environment.  For instance integrating an extranet with a document management system allows for a pain free creation of sites and easy document sending. Integrating with finance systems enables firms to give up-to-date management information to their clients – all of this, from within one single location. 

Security

With the huge volumes of digital data now transmitted or stored electronically across the globe, we have seen a proliferation in cybercrime and industrial espionage. In fact one in four European companies reported at least one case of information theft in 2013, up from 18% in 2012**.  Given that lawyers deal with highly sensitive information on a daily basis and with this rising risks of hacking and cybercrime it is imperative that data is kept secure. 

Extranets help alleviate the use of unauthorised applications to store and share sensitive documents as only those individuals in any given group who need access to any particular document have the relevant permissions. Encryption technology is used to protect data when stored on the server or during transfer and the reporting function also allows firms to track documents for auditing purposes and manage any compliance risks.  Furthermore, extranets can be cloud based or on premise to suit a firm’s security requirements.

Personalise

In the competitive legal environment, having a seamless and professional corporate image is an increasingly important differentiating factor and can give your company an edge over your rivals. 

Certain extranets allow for full branding so that the portal is seen as an integrated part of the firm’s technology through the use of customisable templates and through the use of colours, logos images and ‘widget’ placements.  Not only does this flexibility help build a working environment that teams are comfortable with but it also increases user uptake which is key to the successful implementation of any technology.
 

Although many technologies exist for lawyers and clients to collaborate, communicate and share documents, extranets offer a powerful means to bring all these elements together.  By offering a single, centralised ‘hub’, productivity can be streamlined and enriched through better communications and efficient document and knowledge sharing.  Additionally, through the integration of other systems and processes, it ensures that users gain a holistic view of all the information related a project or matter.  Not only does this help improve client relationship overall, but it also helps cut overheads, improve workflow efficiencies while maintaining high level security over sensitive documents.

*LSN Research Legal IT Landscapes 2015 - http://www.legalsupportnetwork.co.uk/sites/default/files/Legal_IT_Landscapes_2015.pdf

** White & Black corporate technology lawyers - http://www.wablegal.com/e-bulletins/trade-secrets-european-commission-adopts-proposal-harmonising-eu-law  

How strong are your firm’s organisational skills?

Recently I stumbled across a live site that shows all the commercial aircrafts in the skies above us at any given moment in time. The sheer volume and what can only be described as complete chaos, had me mesmerised. 
However, with over 100,000 daily commercial flights  taking off and landing across the globe, the aviation industry is probably one of the most meticulously organised operations that spans across the globe.  A lot of it is thanks to the highly integrated, centralised and coordinated air traffic control (ATC) operations which play an essential role.

Now just as each of the 100,000 flight needs to be precisely planned, monitored and organised throughout its journey, the same is true for the thousands of documents flowing through a firm each day.

ILTA 2014 - The Electronic Record: From Wishful Thinking to Reality

ILTA 2014 is a 4 day conference event for law firms to get the latest on technologies, best practices in information and organisational management. This year, the event was held in Nashville, USA in late August. Damian Jeal reports on one of the many compelling sessions and compares the different views on electronic document around the world.

Australia’s Privacy Act update – How to comply to the Act and secure your firm’s data?

In conjunction with the huge volumes of electronic data in existence today, there has been a steep rise in the amount of confidential information being misused, lost or stolen. Organisations must now safeguard their sensitive data to meet the requirements of Australia’s updated Privacy Act, or face the harsher fines that have been defined.
On March 12th 2014, Australia implemented its Privacy Amendment Act 2012. This Act now comprehensively extends the regime around the collection, use, disclosure and transfer of data of a personal and sensitive nature. These amends follow the recent, similar changes to the EU Data Security Directives set out to provide a more harmonised approach to data protection across the EU Nations. Consequently, organisations are required to take “reasonable steps” to protect such information from misuse and loss. 

Top 5 ways digital ring binders are changing your work environment

As the world becomes increasingly digital and teams work collaboratively across the globe, managing large amounts of information efficiently has become paramount. Physical ring binders have always been used as a centralised tool to store, organise and transport paper documents in large bundles.

However, electronic documents and increasing workforce mobility are creating new needs which the physical ring binder can no longer satisfy. Firms are seeking digital alternatives  that can integrate their modern document workflow and realise the time and cost saving potentials. 
Yes, digital binders do exist and with more and more of our clients deploying them, we look at the top 5 practical ways in which firms are actually using them and making a difference.

Data Security EU Directive – What you need to know about the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation

One in four European companies reported at least one case of information theft in 2013, up from 18% in 2012*. With the huge volumes of digital data now transmitted or stored electronically across the globe, we have seen a proliferation in cybercrime and industrial espionage.
Although EU laws today are meant to protect businesses, they are only effective to a certain degree. This is because there has never been a “one size fits all” approach to privacy compliance. The differences between each country’s set of regulations, make it hard to answer questions such as the level and extent of protection and what needs to be done when data is stolen, especially if your activity spans overs several countries.

3 must-have technologies to reduce paper consumption

Two million pages are printed every minute across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). That’s the equivalent of chopping down 63 trees per minute* or a volume of paper to cover almost 17.5 football stadium. If the paperless office may still be a myth, the "less-paper" office is a very tangible, measureable and achievable target which is now integrated in most corporate policies.
Here are the top 3 paper usage technologies that firms, large and small, we work with, have implemented.

Is your sensitive data spiralling out of control?

With 114.3 billion business emails sent and received globally each day, email is one of most proliferant communication platforms available today. Among other things, confidential data (key financials, client information, patent filings etc.) is channelled via email daily. Email is meant to be used to collaborate with colleagues, teams, external parties etc and in this processes many attachments are sent back and forth to various recipients for review, comment and amendment. There is nothing new here BUT, have you ever thought about the rate at which these sensitive documents are actually replicated during this process? It is a cause for security concern, here’s why…

More intelligent messaging

[ This paper was originally published in LSN Briefing Magazine - March 2014 ]
Nila Hirani at Nikec Solutions on how email can help you manage the risks around leavers, from retaining contacts to reducing the risks of fraud and non-compliance.
Networking and relationships play a huge part in growing business today, making it all the more essential to understand it, manage it and leverage your contacts.

What you need to know (and do) about the Heartbleed bug

If, just like us, part of your business is comprised of solutions that are hosted in the cloud, you have important personal assets online, or you recently bought something online, your heart probably stopped for a second when you first heard about the Heartbleed bug. “Massive security bug”, “Devastating worldwide security flaw”… we all saw something similar making the headlines. Should I remove my documents stored online? Should I quickly look in my bank account and check if anything is missing? 
Yes, when such news reaches the headlines in non IT magazines, when all the net security people around the world are in panic mode, it’s probably time to have a serious look at what is actually going on.
In terms of “big bugs” hurting big names of the web such as Facebook, Amazon, Dropbox, there’s only a few that reach the level of damages that Heartbleed can cause. But is everyone actually affected? Fortunately not, starting with most financial institutions and other sites (including Nikec’s) that don’t use the OpenSSL technology. Relief!

Let’s take a moment to clarify the topic and understand what we are talking about. Here is what you need to know about Heartbleed.

Understanding relationships to unlock business potential

In 1929, the Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy established that any two people can be connected to each other in a maximum of six steps - the "6 degrees of separation" also known as the "6 handshakes theory". In 1994, Kevin Bacon was the centre of a student's challenge at Pennsylvania's Albright College. The challenge was to connect every film actor to Bacon in six cast lists or fewer. Bacon thought the game would die out but it never did and instead grew beyond anyone’s expectation. Following the concept, he launched a website (sixdegrees.org) that brings together people interested in helping good causes.

Networking and relationships play a huge part in growing business today, making it all the more essential to understand it, manage it and leverage your contacts.

3 essential things you never thought your emails could reveal

A picture paints a thousand words - this also holds true in the business world. For instance many of us convert spreadsheets with what appears to look like a meaningless stream of numbers, into charts and graphs. This not only helps uncover key trends but adds value to the information. 
The above is just a simple example but with the implosion of information in today’s digital era, we need help in seeing the wood for the trees – a way to mine through what is a lot of unstructured information to unearth the true meaning or context in a clear, logical manner and understand its actual value.

Sharing Information in the Digital Age

Do you have a single repository where all matter related documents are stored or do these reside in multiple locations? If these are in various locations, how much time does your employee spend trawling through each repository to find what they are looking for? 
An IDC report suggests that the average cost for an information worker to search for documents can amount up to £12000 per person per year*. This is substantial, especially when multiplied by the number of workers that exist in any given firm.
Lawyers and their teams are inundated with matter and research related documents which come in a wide range of formats (pdfs, videos, html…) and that can be found in various places such as a user’s email inbox, document management system (DMS), intranet or mobile devices. Good document organisation and efficient sharing has now become a key factor for productivity and growth.

Is cloud based technology right for your firm? Get some advice from Lee Biggenden, an independent consultant from Nephos Technologies

Nikec solutions speaks to Lee Biggenden at Nephos Technologies who provide consultancy, management and technology services to organisations that are seeking to optimise their cloud strategy.  

As an independent Cloud Broker with no Cloud space to sell, Nephos Technologies acts as an unbiased independent adviser. We asked Lee about the current state of Cloud technology, how  it answers to in professional environments requirements but also how to differentiate Cloud vendors and how to approach the data security question when moving to the Cloud. 

5 technologies that shorten the document lifecycle and increase productivity

As the business world moves faster, lawyers are expected to respond to a client’s demand swiftly and consequently need to produce documents quicker than ever. With the different processes involved between the creation and the completion of a document (initial scanning, editing, reviewing, approval and sharing) – i.e. the document lifecycle – teams must stay sharp and consistent to meet those shorter response times. 

Digitalisation has revolutionised the speed at which we work with documents but the use of latest technologies can further enhance this. Here are some of the instrumental technologies that will help optimise your document life cycle, without requiring an army of IT experts to manage. 

7 reasons why law firms digitise their client matter

The creation of matters is central to a law firm’s operation - the focal point between a lawyer, his/her team and the client.  While many firms still produce paper based matter folders, this is slowly changing with the realisation that the costs associated with this method (the time spent creating and amending documents, searching for lost files, printing, transportation and storage) are high.  
As the use of electronic documents becomes much more widespread, technologies to create digital matters are becoming prevalent.  Some of these intuitive tools closely reflect how lawyers work and interact with documents.  They also integrate with other systems to give a complete overview of the client and matter.  These are just a few of the benefits.  

We have spoken to several client law firms who started the process of digitising their matters. Here is a first-hand insight into their rationale behind going digital.

Don’t let your printing costs get out of hand!

As an organisation, you wish you could give your employees the licence to print freely, print whatever they want, how they want (in colour or black & white, single or double side…). However, this ‘free’ printing strategy can have a staggering impact on print related costs including paper, toner, cost of maintenance and support. In today’s organisations, employees print on average 60 pages a day or 12,000 sheets a year. Multiply this by the total number of employees in a single firm and you can get an idea of the impact. Add the indirect expenses mentioned above and you will find these costs mounting up to 3% of your total profit*.

5 Major Information Related Challenges Faced by Law Firms

The work environment is changing with technology being a catalyst. With the sheer volumes of documents and devices (laptops, smartphones and tablets) from which information can be consumed, documents and workflow processes can quickly turn into a state of disarray if not managed efficiently. Eventually, aside from the direct cost of information processing, it is the competitive position of the firm, through its quality of service, which is at stake.

Here are some major information related challenges that law firms face today 

3 Ways to Secure Your Law Firm’s Information and Reputation

As competition within the legal environment intensifies, law firms are constantly looking for ways to differentiate their services. While many consider their reputation as their greatest asset that took years to build, there are a few key elements that underpin this, one of which is security. It is this robust security that can prevent issues such as data breaches which in turn will destroy your reputation at the snap of a finger.  

It is not only the law firms who understand the need for data protection and security, clients and consumers are becoming much more savvy and are realising that they too, need to protect their own.  With newspapers filled with stories of hackers attacking large multinational companies and mobile devices with sensitive data being lost or stolen, security is fast becoming a top priority for most businesses today.

Here are 3 ways to secure your firm’s information and reputation...

4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process

Matter management is a complex affair.  As a team member working with your colleagues and manager to compile matter folders, you may have experienced the frustration of making last minute amendments to documents or spent unnecessary time searching for a document that has simply disappeared or been saved elsewhere.
…And that’s only the beginning! Next comes the challenge of getting that long awaited stamp of approval from the person in charge of the case. This may take some time. Gone are the days where you could find your managers at the end of the corridor and receive an immediate answer. At best, they are out of the office, too busy dealing with an influx of emails from your peers or other urgent priorities.  Even when you get an answer, it is likely that there will be some toing and froing between you and your manager before you receive that final approval. 
Technology is there to help you. Although it will not support your case in any way and will not work out the psychological path to selling an idea to your boss, you still can use some of it to optimise this approval process and bridge some of the gaps between you and your manager.

Here are 4 new technologies which help speed up the approval process.

Monitoring Social Media Networks? 8 benefits you are missing out on if you don’t

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it". (Warren Buffet)

This has never been so true thanks to the social media network – a complex and rapidly evolving communications ecosystem where millions of us turn up to share, discuss, comment, post, pin, tweet… an open arena where organisations promote their company, brand and products and where millions of people are free to generate content and exchange ideas.  
Just like wildfire, positive or negative information about your company, brands and products can spread over the vast social media networks at impressive speeds. 

What implications does this have? How can you make the most of it?

BYOD and consumerisation of IT in the Legal Industry

With an increasing amount of consumer IT software products infiltrating through the business environment, law firms and IT suppliers are facing a shift in their strategies and working practices.  
Competition is fierce and law firms are looking for new ways to provide clients with value added services at competitive rates. Both lawyers and clients urgently need efficient ways to communicate and collaborate using secure and reliable technologies.  The workforce has turned mobile and more people use their own devices at work due to the advent of smartphone devices. 
Faced with these challenges, what can law firms do to stay ahead of the game?

Fun factor at work! (gamification in business applications)

Gamification: [noun] : the application of typical elements of game playing (e.g. point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) to non-game environment: "gamification is exciting because it promises to make the hard stuff in life fun".

In the working environment, gamification is increasingly used to stimulate employees motivation, reinforce retention, engagement, and satisfaction. Ultimately, it results in better sales, higher system uptake, reduced staff turnover etc… Quite often, it is a more powerful way to engage employees than standard monetary incentives alone.
The rationale behind it is really simple: work that feels like play is advantageous to an organisation and because of this simplicity, it can be applied to any function of the organisation. More specifically, gamification can make a significant difference in the rate of adoption of an application  be it a CRM, an ERP, a DMS or simpler tool such as a file sharing system. So how would gamification be translated in a professional application?  

6 essential questions you should ask when selecting a file sharing solution

Collaborative working is making the business world turn faster. File sharing supports collaborative work, reduces business development cycles, reduces your carbon footprint, and there has probably never been a greater choice of sharing solutions available than there are today. 

But not all solutions are made equal and before you rush into choosing your own solution, there are six key questions to consider.

Cloud or on premise? The choice is yours!

When you plan to acquire a business application, chances are you will more and more often have to choose between hosting it in the Cloud or on your on servers. The fact is that from the user point of view, there is not much difference and therefore the choice is entirely yours.

Here are some down to earth and critical questions you need to answer before making any decision.

Nikec Docstore: an advanced secure file sharing solution for professionals

[ News from Nikec Solutions ]
Are your lawyers using file sharing systems that your firm does not approve of? Are they using these because their clients want them to? Nikec Solutions introduces Nikec Docstore as a medium to securely share documents and files with clients and colleagues.

Nikec Docstore is an advanced file storing and sharing application designed for professionals. It sets standards in terms of security and file integrity and can be hosted either as a secured Cloud or On Premise solution.

Read on Nikec Solutions web site